"This, then is our desert:
to live facing despair,
but not to consent.
To trample it down under hope in the Cross.
To wage war against despair unceasingly.
That war is our wilderness.
If we wage it courageously,
we will find Christ at our side.
If we cannot face it,
we will never find him."

Sunday, 7 October 2012

Andrea Gabrieli: Battaglia a 8

Music by Andrea Gabrieli, said to have been written to commemorate the Battle of Lepanto (7th October 1571)
Today's feast-day of Our Lady of the Rosary (if it weren't a Sunday) was, of course, originally kept as Our Lady of Victory to celebrate the crushing and decisive victory of the Christian forces of the Holy League against those of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, something attributed to the devout praying of the rosary. Could, then, the rosary be the reason why there is a church with a tower opposite my study window rather than a mosque with a minaret? Ah, the paradoxes of history ....